Background

As the second largest provider of utility vegetation management services in North America, Lewis Tree Service is a leader in safety, responsiveness and innovation. Lewis personnel work in support of many electric co-op and municipal electric utilities. Thus, they provide a wide range of vegetation management services and expertise including transmission and distribution utility line clearing and outage response resources.

Impetus

Suffering from exceptional high loss frequency in both auto liability (vehicular crashes) and worker’s compensation (on-the-job-injuries), including three fatalities in a single year, Lewis / Monroe Tree Service engaged Avatar to create an effective outcome-based approach to managing risk.

Solution

Avatar created custom-designed materials and assisted Lewis / Monroe Tree Services in the roll-out and implementation of the following:

Safety Leadership: This four hour interactive workshop provided front line leaders, managers and supervisors with an understanding of why people have accidents and injuries, what to look for and how to intervene before repetitive unsafe behaviors led to actual losses. As a result, managers and supervisors left with a new found understanding of risk management and tools they could use to bring about meaningful change.

New Employee Selection & Hiring: Avatar created and validated a multiple hurdle employee selection process, featuring pre-employment assessments to uncover the presence of vital characteristics needed for success on the job. In addition to more traditional data gathered through an application process, new stages/hurdles were created, including:

Avatar Management Services, Inc. provides solutions to the human performance challenges facing business, industry and government organizations. Our services embrace every aspect of organizational development. We deliver value to our clients by systematically developing strategies which lead to improved individual, group and organizational work performance, and thus greater profitability. We are the #1 provider of Recruitment Tools, Employee Hiring Systems, Safety Training Videos, and HR Programs to the transportation industry.